Visualising the code-in-action helps students learn programming skills

Theodor Wyeld, Minoru Nakayama

    Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

    3 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The need to know how to code for university graduates has become crucial if they are to achieve their goals of employment after graduation. Post-graduation jobs increasingly require some understanding of how programs work and are developed. The project reported here used HTML and JavaScript to introduce students to the core structure of coding. It uses code that produces a visual result which helps non-IT students overcome their fear of coding. Using an online HTML and JavaScript editor to create a 2D game for a mobile deice introduces students to some basic programming skills in a fun and creative way. This paper reports on a project that tracked before and after sentiment towards learning coding skills. It shows a shift in sentiment from a fear of coding to a better understanding of the potential of coding to produce creative outcomes. However, despite the shift in sentiment across the project, there was still too much reliance on external help - students were not able to initiate programming without some assistance. This suggests, along with the method described in this paper, other methods should also be explored.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages182-187
    Number of pages6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 6 Dec 2018
    Event2018 22nd International Conference on Information Visualisation: Biomedical visualisation, visualisation on built and rural environments & geometric modelling and imaging - Fisciano, Italy
    Duration: 10 Jul 201813 Jul 2018
    Conference number: 22nd
    https://doi.org/10.1109/IV45327.2018 (Conference link)

    Conference

    Conference2018 22nd International Conference on Information Visualisation
    Abbreviated titleIV 2018
    Country/TerritoryItaly
    CityFisciano
    Period10/07/1813/07/18
    Internet address

    Keywords

    • Learning to code
    • Learning to program
    • Code anxiety
    • Online editor
    • Games coding
    • Learning To Program
    • Learning To Code
    • Games Coding
    • Code Anxiety
    • Online Editor

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